The present application relates to diagnosis and service of computer faults.
In recent decades, computers have become integral tools for information processing. Businesses and individuals rely on commercially available PCs for many purposes. To be competitive, companies provide extensive customer support for the machines they sell, and considerable resources are expended on diagnosis and repair of computers.
Service personnel can gather the information they need by going to the actual site of the computer. This is expensive and usually not cost effective. More often, service personnel speak directly with customers over the telephone to get information about the problem. However, problems with the operation of computers may often be complex, and users do not always know what information service personnel need in order to resolve the service call.
This problem can be partially addressed by a diagnostics program that resides on the customer""s computer (e.g., Compaq Diagnostics for Windows) and locally collects hardware and operating system information from the computer. The customer verbally provides this information to customer service during a service call.
Problems with the operation of a computer can often be complex, or require technical changes in files found on the customer""s computer. The information offered by diagnostics programs is usually extensive, detailed information relating to hardware and software configurations, minor changes in which are usually the cause of computer faults. When a customer tries to get help from customer service, the customer must still participate to relay the results from the diagnostics program to the service technician over the telephone. This can result in a trial-and-error method of problem solving, with the technician asking questions, the customer providing information, then following the technicians instructions to make the needed changes. This process repeats until the problem is solved, which sometimes requires many iterations, or until frustration and time consumption lead the customer, the technician, or both, to give up. This process would be greatly simplified were the technician to have direct access to the information provided by the diagnostics program.
The information provided by diagnostics programs does not identify recent configuration changes in the hardware and software. Recent configuration changes are often the source of a computer problem, so there is need for a way to generate comprehensive configuration snapshots for service personnel to use during a service call.
The present application teaches, among many things, an improved method of servicing and diagnosing computer faults. The primary requirements for computer service tools include on-line functionality to identify and resolve problems without taking the computer off-line, and a simple collection process for gathering the computer information required to effectively resolve service cases. This application provides a simplified process of capturing comprehensive information about the computer hardware and operating system and sending that and other information to customer service using existing hardware.
A diagnostics program records hardware and operating system configurations when the program is installed on the computer. Later, when a computer owner calls customer service with a problem, the computer owner runs the diagnostic program, which prompts the customer for email account information, telephone number, and information on the computer problem. The diagnostics program then captures the current computer hardware and operating system configuration. The program performs this capture without the need to restart the computer or take it off-line. The program next uses the email account information to activate the email system and send the information about the problem provided by the customer along with the hardware and operating system configuration information to customer service. The program then logs out of the email system. Customer service uses this data to help service the computer.
This innovation streamlines the computer service process by enabling quick and easy access to detailed information about a computer""s hardware and software configuration. It allows faster problem resolution time, since essential and reliable data is gathered and made directly available to customer service. This reduces administration costs and resource expenditure in customer service and diagnostics, while maintaining or improving quality of service to the customer. Computer downtime for the customer is also reduced since service calls are resolved more quickly.